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Why was Erika so upset with her other student?

posted 13 years ago by lynno_94
4 replies | jump to latest

At some point during the movie, Erika catches one of her piano students with some friends looking at some trashy magazines. And in the lesson, while she always is harsh and rigid with him, she was even more severe and unkind to him and when he apologizes, she becomes angrier, calling him a jerk ("Salaud"). My question is, why was she so mad? For as long as I've known, teenage boys looking for trashy magazines is perfectly normal. I'm sure she must've known this too. And even if she didn't know that, why would she be repulsed by what he was doing, since she is doing so herself? I might understand if a very conservative and stuck-up woman was a bit disturbed to see the boy there, but she isn't that different than him. She even watches couples have sex without their knowledge, for God's sake :p Why would she seem so insulted that the boy had to feel more than just mere embarrassment?

[–] Nirhtuc 13 years ago

I think her overreactions reflect her guilt/shame about the kind of stuff that she herself does. She also really wanted him to give her a reason for the apology- in other words, for him to acknowledge that what he was doing was wrong (in a social/moral sense, definitely not my opinion), so that she could feel better about what she does. That's how I understood it.

[–] nnenok 12 years ago

This scene was unusual for me too. The argument that she is ashamed of her fetishes doesn't sound reasonable to me because if you are ashamed of it, you don't go in a sex shop so freely, watch people directly in the eyes when you're waiting for a free booth (remember in the beginning when all the stalls were occupied and she was standing in front and all the men were looking at her suprised, thinking "What is a woman doing here, this is so unusual?". In that scene she seemed almost comfortable with her sexuality, that's why it surprised me why she was so aggressive to the kid who was just watching a simple magazine.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] lynno_94 12 years ago

It's true that she has masochistic desires such as cutting herself and having fantasies of being bound. Your answer makes sense in the sense that she finds pleasure in embarrassing a young man and being in a position of power over him. But it would have been even more convincing were she also engaged in sadistic acts where she was the dominant, but since she seems the want to be submissive (she has this desire to be hit and harmed as i recall), it isn't all that clear to me. But you might be right after all, since all throughout the movie up to the 2/3 of the movie, she takes charge of everything (piano lessons, her relationship with the young student, etc.)
I thought about it a little, and in the interview of the actress, she said that the character didnt want to be seduced. She rejected anything that could be interpreted as seduction, and therefore reject anyone who could end up a seductor, seeking only sex and pleasure without romance. Seeing as the boy was looking at porn magazines, she might have had that bad vibe about him, even though it's something quite natural at his age. Maybe she got ticked off that he was going down that road, where seduction and pleasure is key, instead of becoming the romantic she would like men in general to be, so she wanted to make him feel bad about it.
Someone said before that she was taking out her own frustrations and i believe it makes very much sense too. It might be strange that shed react that way, since she doesn't seem to be too ashamed of those habits, like someone else said (her wandering nonchalantly in the pornography cabinets). But I believe that, even though she didn't seem too bothered by her urges, she was in reality ashamed of them, deep down, and didn't want to acknowledge that shame.

But thank you, that really helped :)